Onboarding a Small Team Without KYC: What to Hand Out Before Anyone Calls the API

Why centralize onboarding

When every developer signs up for their own vendor accounts, you get the opposite of onboarding: scattered billing, inconsistent model access, and no shared reference for which model name goes where. An API aggregator that exposes many models behind one key lets you hand out access centrally. Because top-ups use USDC on Base and no KYC is required per person, adding a developer is a configuration task, not a procurement task.

Decide key topology first

Before anything else, choose how many keys exist and who holds them.

• One shared key is simplest to start but blurs attribution: you cannot tell who spent what, and rotating it touches everyone.
• Per-person keys under one account is usually the right default for a small team. Each developer gets a distinct credential, individual rotation is painless, and usage maps to a person.
• Environment separation matters as much as person separation. Keep development keys distinct from anything that runs in shared staging or production.

Write down the topology (who holds which key, which environment it belongs to) in one place. This is the document people will actually search for later.

Distribute secrets without pasting them in chat

Do not send keys through group chat or commit them to a repository. Pick one mechanism and state it in the onboarding doc:

• A secrets manager or password vault that each developer already has access to.
• A one-time secure link or direct handoff for the initial value.
• A rule that keys live only in local environment variables or the platform's secret store, never in code.

Also state the rotation expectation: who rotates, when, and how the new value reaches the team. A key with no rotation plan is an incident waiting for a date.

Hand out the base URL and a minimal working example

The most common first-hour failure is a developer pointing an SDK at the wrong host. Give them the exact base URL and one copy-pasteable snippet in the language they will actually use.

• Tell them the key is an environment variable, not a literal in the snippet.
• Show the OpenAI-compatible pattern if the aggregator exposes one, since many SDKs accept a custom base URL.
• Include one non-streaming call and one streaming call so they can confirm both paths work.
• Tell them what a success response looks like versus an authentication error, so they can self-diagnose.

Build the model alias sheet

Model names are where teams drift. One developer hardcodes a dated model string, another uses a family alias, and six months later nobody knows which is canonical.

Create a single sheet with:

• Canonical alias your team uses in code (the identifier they type).
• Provider and model family so readers know what it maps to (for example Claude, GPT, DeepSeek, Qwen, GLM, or Kimi).
• Intended use — default chat, long-context work, cheap bulk tasks, code generation.
• Notes such as whether streaming is expected or whether the model is suitable for a given workload.

Then make the alias sheet authoritative: code should reference the team alias, and any change to it is a reviewed change. Point developers to the aggregator's live model documentation for the current list rather than duplicating it in the sheet.

Make spend visible from day one

Developers should know what they are spending before they are surprised by it. Show them where usage and spend appear, and give them a mental model of the pricing.

• Calls are billed at the official model price multiplied by a factor, so relative costs between models still reflect official pricing differences.
• Teach the habit of checking the usage view when testing a new workload, and of using cheaper models for bulk or exploratory runs.
• Agree on a soft expectation: who reviews spend, how often, and whether large batch jobs get a heads-up.

Keep this conceptual. The goal is that nobody discovers cost only at the end of the month.

Write the "next person" runbook

Onboarding should not depend on the person who set it up. Leave a short runbook:

1. Create a per-person key in the account and label it with the owner and environment.
2. Deliver it through the agreed secret channel.
3. Point the developer to the base URL, the snippet, and the alias sheet.
4. Confirm a test call succeeds and that usage appears under the right key.
5. Note the offboarding step: revoke the key and remove the secret.

What not to hand out

• Do not share account-level credentials when a scoped key will do.
• Do not distribute keys in a document that is broadly readable.
• Do not let staging keys drift into production paths.

A small team does not need a vendor account per person. It needs one clear owner, per-person keys, a canonical model sheet, and a visible spend view — all of which fit in a short onboarding page.